Fathers
by ss10009
Summary: He didn't want to be selfish, but his heart tinged with jealousy whenever he thought of Peter Simon.  - - Jesse's angst has to be around here somewh—found it.  It's daddy issues.


**Disclaimer:**

The Mediator belongs to Meg Cabot. I make no profit from this.

**Summary:**

He didn't want to be selfish, but his heart tinged with jealousy whenever he thought of Peter Simon. - - Jesse's angst has to be around here somewh—found it. It's daddy issues.

**Fathers**

My father was a stoic man who believed in hard work and duty above all else—perhaps even his own belief in God. When I was young, he told me stories about how his grandparents had come here from Spain in order to make a better life for themselves away from the king. "Héctor," he would say. He was my only family member who called me by my proper first name. "_Mi hijo_, the de Silva name was branded out of months across perilous seas and hours in the sun, working with bloodied hands in order to survive and become something better. No matter if this ranch should grow to encompass the entire territory, you must never forget your humble roots."

His next words were variable. They would be pious and warn me against the sin of pride every night. He would leave and my mother would enter. Her face was warm and soft where my father's was drawn and distant. She would gather me close to her, ignorant of what my father had already said to me. My mother was kindred and loving and as such would spare me of the biting aspects of our family's history. She never mentioned herself the story of how her own family left Spain. We would bow to our knees together and say the Lord's Prayer every night, and afterwards she would gather me into her arms and tell me "_Te amo, Jesse_."

It was my father, not my mother, who eventually joined me as a ghost. Nearly twenty years after I was my murdered, my mother passed away—of natural causes. Scantly two months afterwards my father followed. Despite their contrasting natures and the arrangement of their marriage they cared for each other deeply. Without her and with all of his children married or, in my case, deceased, what point was there for him to continue? He'd tended to the ranch until the day he'd died—with no son left to pass on his legacy. I'd been watching him—because he was my father, and being a spirit had made me feel weak and lost. When I needed strength, I would always turn to him.

On this afternoon, his plow dropped, and he fell to the ground. Worry had filled me which felt strange because I had never worried or feared for my father before. He had a sort of breadth about him that made me feel as though he would live forever. The man closest to him, Marta's husband, dropped to his knees and began a precursory look over. This man was born to be a rancher, not a doctor, and I heard my father's death rattle within seconds.

I felt empty and lost.

My father appeared by my side two hours later and was gone an hour after that. "I have needed to know," he said as he looked at me. "I have been wondering all of these years what happened to the son that I raised. Why did he stray from me?"

"I never strayed," I said, and I didn't bother to tell him the entire story. It didn't matter that Maria had plotted my murder. It didn't matter that I had gone to Carmel-by-the-Sea to nullify our engagement instead of convert it into a wedding. Those details that I'd struggled with for decades felt insignificant and petty. "I died before I could return home."

"Forgive my doubt," he said. I couldn't recall him ever apologizing to me before, and I couldn't tell if the words were sincere or forced. He would remain stoic until his own end. As it was, his own end arrived within seconds of his apology. He left me there as he dematerialized for a first and final time. He couldn't have known then that my final dematerialization wouldn't happen for another hundred and thirty years. He had been a spirit for no more than a few hours and had no grasp of the permanence of my situation.

It didn't hurt me then. One hundred and fifty years was more than enough time for loneliness and introspection, but it never hurt me. And I never wished, even as I watched my sisters pass away, that any of them should have to remain here as I did. I accustomed myself away from companionship and suffered by myself.

Or at least, I was by myself for over a century. Somewhere around my hundred and seventieth birthday, I met someone who began to alleviate me of my loneliness. She was brazen, spirited, beautiful, and morally bound in a way that she herself would likely deny. I was drawn to her in a way that me think and feel dangerously. The companionship I had given up craving now had a name: Susannah.

Being near her was a rediscovery of both happiness and misery. I told her to call me _Jesse_, not _Héctor_, because I wanted her proximity. I had no intention of leaving, despite the inappropriate nature of the situation, because, after a hundred and fifty years, I was a moth drawn to the flame. Each time I was near her, I could still hear my own personal reminders. Susannah will leave you some day. If you are truly her friend, then you will make sure she leaves.

My misery became agony when I met Susannah's father. He was a dedicated man with a simplistic concern for the wellbeing of his daughter. His concern likely would have been just short of inexistent had I been a woman, but it was nevertheless completely unnecessary. There were lines that I had crossed by befriending her, but there were an unspoken number of rules that would have to be broken before I could impugn upon her honor.

He was lighthearted—especially for a spirit. There was nothing to worry about after you were dead—except for the unknowable amount of time in which you would exist, invisible to the rest of the world and just as pointless. But Peter Simon did not exist pointlessly, as I did. I could see his purpose plainly as he gave me empty, but chilling, threats on what would happen if I laid a hand on his daughter.

It sounded like something my own father would have done if any man had dared to come too close to one of my sisters. It was certainly something I would have done. Peter Simon would remain here until Susannah found happiness, and he didn't plan on leaving a moment earlier. I couldn't decide if my father would have done that for my sisters.

He certainly hadn't done that for me.

I couldn't remember every lesson my father had ever taught me, but I could remember most of them. I remember everything he said to me about ranching, even though not a word of it was useful now. I remember his thoughts about God and sin and the way he led prayer before every dinner. I remember how he taught to me the difference between a boy and a man. I remember how hard I strove to be that man and my own personal sacrifices, which would never compare to the stories of my grandparents that he had told me as a child and again during fieldwork when I grew older.

"My grandmother," he would say from atop his horse, "nearly sold her own honor to find a way to feed my father. This family has endured countless struggles and found miracles."

I think he could see it in my eyes sometimes—that I had other ambitions aside from the ranch. Perhaps it had hardened his heart even more so. He left me no doubt that pursuing a different life was completely unacceptable and would come with no sympathies, and the number of stories he told me that revolved around "duty" and "honor" increased. And wasn't he right? My one betrayal to his insistence upon those values was when I rode out to annul my marriage arrangement with María.

But _was _he right? I had died once, back then, but I was alive now and I could have no lovelier savior. I would have the dream that he denied me and, perhaps some day, I myself would be...

"What's on your mind? You look all pensive," Susannah said. Her father had just left—forever—but it had resulted in catharsis rather than sadness. Rather than emptiness or anger. She looked beautiful in her long white dress. In my day, white had hardly been the standard for marriage, but I knew it was nearly mandated now. Perhaps some day...

I smiled at her. "It's nothing," I said.

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